Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing

College of Health Sciences

Student Nurses Association and NSNA 2013

Five junior nursing students, officers from the University of Wyoming Student Nurses Association (SNA), attended the National Student Nurses Association convention in Charlotte, North Carolina in April. In this picture, they took time to fund-raise by selling T-shirts to the national attendees. (l-r, Amanda Smolen, Terra Harvey, Kalle Ide, Catherine Yarbrough, Ashton Nelson).

Conference Events

As a result of fund-raising, support from the school and from UW, five UW Student Nurses Association (SNA) officers were able to attend the National SNA (NSNA) Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. The students said they learned so much that they suggest that next year pre-nursing students consider attending. Here are some of their favorite sessions in which they participated:

An NCLEX review ("NCLEX" is the registered nurse national certifying exam), learning how to be better test takers and how to best prepare for the exam.

A seminar on how to adopt a healthier lifestyle. "This seminar was so inspirational and showed many of us how to have a more positive outlook on life and to help others do the same," said one of the participants.

Seminars focused on areas of nursing for future careers options, including neurological nursing, emergency nursing, midwifery nursing, and oncology nursing. The students felt that the seminars were beneficial and "helped some of us consider going into areas that we have never thought of before."

A seminar called "Pharmacology Made Easy" based on the speaker’s book, including songs and pictures to help make learning drugs easier.

Seminars specifically for SNA presidents, vice presidents, and secretaries specializing in their specific positions. These seminars were full of ideas and ways to advance and better the local SNA program.

The president of the UW SNA, Catherine Yarbrough, was the only delegate for the whole state of Wyoming in their "legislative" sessions. "During roll call," says Catie, "each state had to count off and tell how many people were representing the state. Many had cute sayings, some sang, so I stood up as the 'lone ranger' for our state... The main objectives to being a delegate are to vote on new members to be elected for the NSNA officer’s positions and to vote on resolutions that are presented. The topics that were voted on were very interesting. Issues such as allowing homosexuals to donate blood, capping soda to 12 ounces per drink, eliminating 'male nurse' and replacing it with just 'nurse', allowing military nurses who do not perform in combat to have veteran status, requiring insurance to cover autism, making it common practice for all nurses to offer lidocaine for IV injections, and so forth. My new Colorado friend and I stood up to speak at the assigned microphones for certain resolutions or slight errors we found in them. I even made an amendment to a resolution." The delegates would listen to the resolutions on one day and then had time to think and to discuss them before coming back the next day to vote for or against passage per resolution.